Thursday night, the New Jersey Devils look to stay hot by defeating the Florida Panthers for the second game in a row. The Devils have gone 6-2-0 over their past eight games, with their only loses being to the Flames on the road and the Sharks at home.
The Devils are currently 11-6-2, which has them first in the Metropolitan Division. The Panthers hold a record of 11-4-1, which has them first in the Atlantic Division.
Match Overview
The Devils and Panthers are a feature of an interesting quirk in the schedule where the two teams play each other two games in a row in Sunrise. The Devils of course took the first of these two games 4-1 behind an excellent performance from Jacob Markstrom. This victory snapped the Panthers seven game winning streak.
Last season, the Devils took one of the three meetings against the Panthers, with the road team winning each game. The two teams met in the opening week of the season, where a Devils comeback effort at home was cut short in a 4-3 loss. They then met again in January where the Devils got majorly outplayed, but were able to win behind an excellent effort from Nico Daws. The Devils third and final game of the season against the Panthers was a back-and-forth affair that the Panthers eventually won 5-3.
Lines and Pairings
Devils
Forwards
Palat-Hughes-Bratt
Meier-Hischier-Noesen
Cotter-Haula-Mercer
Tatar-Dowling-MacDermid
Defense
Dillon-Hamilton
Hughes-Pesce
Siegenthaler-Kovacevic
Goalies
Markstrom
Allen
Panthers
Forwards
Rodrigues-Barkov-Reinhart
Verhaeghe-Bennett-Tkachuk
Luostarinen-Lundell-Boqvist
Greer-Nosek-Gadjovich
Defense
Forsling-Ekblad
Mikkola-Kulikov
Balinskis-Schmidt
Goalies
Bobrovsky
Knight
Keys to the Game
Goaltending Heating Up
Since giving up 23 goals in just a four game stretch in October, the Devils goaltending has stepped things up a notch during their recent 6-2-0 stretch. Over the team’s last eight games, Jake Allen and Jacob Markstrom have combined for a .940 save percentage (SV%) and 8.43 goals saved above expected (GSAx) per natural stat trick.
If the Devils can get half of those kinds of numbers the rest of the way they’ll be more than just in the playoff race. They’ll be a Stanley Cup contender.
Poor Tomas Tatar
Tomas Tatar throughout his entire career has always been an excellent playdriver. That has continued into this season despite being buried on the fourth line for a majority of it. Tatar is currently third on the team in Corsi-for percentage (CF%) at 54.41 and seventh on the team in expected goals percentage (xG%) at 53.94.
While his production overall hasn’t been great, he doesn’t deserve to be stuck with two AHL level players. His linemates, Justin Dowling and Kurtis MacDermid, have the lowest xG% of any player currently on the team at marks of 39.89 and 39.98, respectively. If both players hadn’t been playing with Tatar for most of their minutes their numbers would surely be even worse.
Where to Watch
Thursday night’s game is slated for a 7:00 pm ET puck drop on MSG SportsNet. The game is set to be at Amerat Bank Arena.